Google Already Sued Over Safari Privacy Scandal, Microsoft Targets Google Too

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It must be tough to be Google right now, as the company is taking direct and indirect hits from its competitors on a daily basis. We’re not going to talk about an Apple patent-based victory against an Android device maker today, but we’re going to look at Google’s recent Safari privacy-breaching allegations and its Google Apps for business.

A few days ago we told you that Google managed to bypass Safari web-surfing privacy features on iOS and OS X devices to track users online, and it now looks like at least one Safari user has taken Google to court over the matter.

One Matthew Soble filed a suit against the company in federal court in Delaware alleging that “Google’s willful and knowing actions violated’ federal wiretapping and other computer-related statues.” And we could be looking at a class-action suit here:

Soble is seeking class-action status for his suit, which was filed on behalf of individuals “whose default privacy settings on the web browser software produced by Apple, known as Safari, were knowingly circumvented by Google,” according to the suit.

In addition to Soble, other entities want to know more about Google’s practice of circumventing Safari’s privacy settings including Consumer Watchdog, who is asking the FTC to investigate the matter and John D. Rockefeller IV, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, who wants to know more about this business practice.

From a different point of view, Microsoft continues to take hits at Google, but this time it’s not privacy related. The Redmond-based company has launched a short funny video on YouTube entitled “Googlighting” in which it mocks Google’s own web apps that are used by various businesses. Is Microsoft feeling threatened by Google’s productivity apps? That may be the case, although let’s not forget that Microsoft also has a very strong productivity suite in place, one that doesn’t really have a rival when it comes to market share.

What’s ironic is that Microsoft decided to attack Google via YouTube, a web service owned and offered to consumers and companies by none other than Google. Also interesting to notice is that at this time the video, which is supposed to become viral, is getting a lot of dislikes, and unless they’re from Google employess then it looks like Microsoft’s hit may not be as successful as the company would have hoped.